Solaire Denaud

Solaire Denaud is a doctoral candidate in the Comparative Literature Program of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a 2025-2026 Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellow. Her research explores the role of animal and environmental ethics in key anti-racist political and artistic movements, including Rastafari, the Nation of Islam, the Civil Rights Movement, Southern midwifery, Afro-futurism, and Womanism. By analyzing the food practices and dietary restrictions within these movements, she argues that the environment and the animal realm were never absent from their visions for the future of the African diaspora, but an integral part of Black liberation, futurities, and spiritualities.